Architect	Grimshaw - Architects
Date Built	2005
Location	Eden Project, Bodelva, Cornwall
Description
The Core building on the Eden Project site is the education centre of the complex.  It incorporates classrooms and exhibition spaces.  Grimshaws say that, "During the evolution of the design the Grimshaw team collaborated with the sculptor, Peter Randall-Page. Rather than starting with any preconceived ideas about how art should be integrated with the building, it was decided that Peter would be engaged as a consultant with no specific output required. What emerged was an appreciation of the universal rhythms found in many natural forms. The design for the building was generated from a natural pattern called phyllotaxis, which is the mathematical basis for nearly all plant growth. Hence the roof structure recalls the arrangement of scales on a pinecone or the seeds in a sunflower head." In an article in the Guardian on Tuesday, September 20th, 2005, Jonathon Clancey described the building.  He said that, "The new £15m education building at Cornwall's Eden Project - a curious, plant-like building, all timber twists, steel turns and copper tines, or prickles - opened last night with a suitably frond-like fireworks display.  At its own core, open to the sky, a giant seed pod whittled down from 157 tonnes of Cornish granite, etched with spirals by the sculptor Peter Randall Page, is designed to act as the visual generator of the building's bravura structure."

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